Wow — Microsoft offers nearly $45 billion for Yahoo

Woke up to some stunning news this morning — Microsoft made an unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion. That works out to $31 a share, which is a 62% premium on the closing price of Yahoo stock last night ($19.18).

As Dare Obasanjo put it: “WOW. Just…wow.” Meanwhile, Reuters reminds us that this would be the biggest Internet deal since the AOL-Time Warner merger — which, if you recall, didn’t quite go so well.
 Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion. Stay tuned for details.

UPDATED Feb. 4 — We’ve added a story that tries to make sense of everything that has developed since Friday morning. It’s called Assessing Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo, and we hope it is more helpful than confusing.